ry soon after passing Altamont, and perhaps we were
more disposed to do justice to the beauty of the river, from the happy
frame of body and mind we were in, owing to the excellent dinner we had
just partaken of at that place, consisting of roast beef, roast turkey,
apple tart, cranberry preserve, and a most superlative Charlotte
Russe--pretty good fare for an hotel in a mountain pass! No wine or
stimulants of any kind were allowed, or what the consequence might have
been on papa's restless state of mind it would be difficult to say; as
it was, I counted that he rose from his seat to look at the view from
the other side of the car, thirty times in the space of an hour and a
half, making a move, therefore, upon an average, of once in every three
minutes; and this he afterwards continued to do as often as the road
crossed the river. I foolishly, at first, partook of his locomotive
propensities, but my exhausted frame soon gave way, so that he declares
I only saw one half of its beauties, namely, the half on the side where
I was seated; but this half was ample to satisfy any reasonable mortal.
I am at a loss to imagine what our fellow-travellers could have thought
of him, as they lounged on their seats, and scarcely ever condescended
to look out of window.

We arrived here, not the least tired with our long journey, though it
occupied twelve hours, and were so fresh afterwards, that we started
after tea, this being the great annual Thanksgiving-day, to the nearest
place of worship we could find, which turned out to be a Baptist
"Church," as it is called here, where we heard a most admirable sermon,
and felt we had reason to offer up our thanks with as much earnestness
as any one of the congregation, for having been spared to make this
journey to the Far West, and to have returned to civilised life, without
encountering a single difficulty or drawback of any kind. I may as well
state, that this Thanksgiving-day was established by the Puritans, and
is still kept up throughout the whole of the United States, its object
being to return thanks for the blessings of the year, and more
especially for the harvest. There are services in all the churches, and
we much regretted not finding out till late yesterday, that this was the
day set apart for it, for had we known this, we should not have
travelled to-day; but once on our journey, with the fear of snow
accumulating in the mountains, we were afraid of stopping on the road,
and we